As a parent of 2 young children, one goes through several moments of anxiety, hope, questions, dreams, aspirations, humour and a thousand other emotions. Parenting is indeed a challenging profession. This blog is an attempt to share some of them with fellow parents and to start a dialogue of sorts. Please feel free to add your comments.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

This incident has left me very disturbed. It was the day when we were
anxiously waiting for the recovery of a dear person in the hospital who
was in the ICU. My eyes fell on a group of people who were talking to
one of the doctors. I could sense that it was something very critical
and all three - a woman, a young man and the old man looked really
worried.The woman in the group had tears in her eyes.

After this I saw the young man walking from one counter
to the other and the old man trying to console the woman. I asked them
if there was any way in which we could help them and the old man told us
that his grand daughter who had been hospitalised for over a fortnight,
was critical and needed blood transfusion immediately. At that, we told
them not to worry and managed to arrange for donors. The mother was so
very overjoyed that she just thanked us every now and then. She told us
that they had come from the village and her daughter who was fourteen
had to be admitted to the hospital due to liver problems.

Now
that the little girl had received blood transfusion we all heaved a
sigh of relief. The mother, her aged father and the young man who we
came to know was her son were overjoyed. When in ICU I felt everybody
who was there felt a bond with each other as everyone knew what each one
of us were going through. Just by the emotions that each one's face reflected was an indicator as to how each one's dear ones were faring.

The
time was 4.15 in the evening when the doctors called the young man
inside and when he came out we immediately knew something was
drastically wrong. Yes, the little girl of fourteen was not able to pull
through and had finally given up the battle. We were all totally
devastated by this. We had not seen this little girl , but there was a
bond which had formed over a period of 3-4 hours. This just shook
me and the tears of the mother was something which I could not bear to
see. I tried as best as I could to console her but it sounded hollow
even to my own ears. Oh! life sometimes can be so very cruel.

The
only final act of help that we could do was when they fell short of
money.We left them to grieve together. The final memory of that mother
was her taking her daughter's clothes to dress her up one last time
before the final journey back home.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

This happened when we were in the hospital recently. With the never ending waiting that accompanies any visit to the doctor I then pursue my all time passion - that of observing people around me. Some faces looked tired and worn out, some of them had their eyes closed, maybe tired of waiting for their turn, some of them looked worried and I hoped everything would turn out fine forthemand then suddenly I was captivated by a little girl maybe all of two years. She was chubby and had a great twinkle in her eyes. I smiled at her and she hid her face behind her mother's saree and there began a game of hide and seek between us.

Just then the little one's father came and spoke to the mother in a very worried tone and I could sense that there was a lot of agitation on their faces. I asked her if everything was alright and this was what she told me: She said that they had come from a nearby village to the hospital as their little one is suffering from Thalassemia - a disorder of the blood which is inherited wherein the body makes an abnormal form of haemoglobin which destroys the red blood cells and which leads to anemia. People suffering from this disorder need to be given blood transfusions on a regular basis. Now on that particular day the hospital was short of stock and therefore had asked them to find donors for their child. They did not know any one there and so were looking very dejected.

Luckily on that particular day we had also gone to the hospital with a few donors who were to donate blood. When the donors came to know about this, they immediately set about calling their friends and within an hour two donors came and donated blood.

I can never forget the look of gratitude on the face of the parents for whom these two good Samaritans were as if none other than God himself had come to help them. And I stood there marvelling at this wonderful moment that unfolded right in front of us.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Well seems to me the ''aam admi" is put to great difficulties day after day. This time it was the diktat from the Govt that all the LPG consumers have to go to the gas agency and submit their LPG number and the Electricity RR no.This drive is against weeding out those who have bogus ration card (I am sure the present day APL generation have never ever heard of something called ration card). The thing is because of this extra burden the personnel working at the gas agency are not taking calls to book gas from consumers.

We therefore had to go personally to collect the gas cylinders as they said that they did not have enough delivery boys to deliver the cylinders home!! My mom had the same difficulty and hence we went to get the cylinder from the agency. Now once we got the new cylinder loaded and put it in our car we paid a small tip to the person who loaded it as we could see he was expecting it.

After getting it home, getting the cylinder inside the kitchen from outside was quite a humungous task so we looked here and there to see if there was someone around who could help us. My eyes fell on a boy of about 18-19 who was working at a nearby construction site. I called out to him and asked him if he could get the cylinder inside. He readily agreed and then lifted the cylinder and placed it inside the kitchen. As he was leaving, by habit I offered him some money and he simply said "No, thanks!" (Did I hear it right?) At first it did not register and then when I tried again he said the same thing and that too in such a polished way I was flabbergasted. I knew this was not the run of the mill person but someone who is a rarity these days. I asked him how much he had studied as his English seemed very polished. He said that he had completed his tenth standard! Since we wanted to show our gratitude we gave him some sweets to eat and he went back to his work.

He came across as a whiff of fresh air amidst such pollution. I wished that may be we all should learn a thing or two from this simple and kind hearted person who is not educated academically but rich in knowledge of love, kindness and sincerity. People like him are the need of the hour, specially given today's state in our country is in. We need more people like him don't you think?

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